THE PRESIDENTIAL palace on Thursday belied claims on social media that President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.’s Defense chief had quit.
“There are rumors that Secretary [Gilberto Eduardo Gerardo “Gibo” C.] Teodoro, Jr. is stepping down? Really now?” Mr. Marcos, Jr. told reporters in Navotas City. “First, let me answer your question: That’s fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake news.”
He said he and Mr. Teodoro had laughed off the rumor over telephone earlier in the day.
He said the Defense chief had told him that the rumors should just be ignored, but he insisted that the public needed to know that the fake news was being spread to sow chaos.
“Let us not be swayed by the chaos they are trying to sow,” the President said. “If there are changes in the Cabinet, in government, we will be the ones to make the announcement.”
In a separate statement, the palace said the rumors were meant to sow disunity within the agency. The President’s “trust and confidence” in Mr. Teodoro had “never wavered,” it added.
The rumors are “pathetic attempts to sow disunity in an organization united in protecting our people and defending our territory,” Presidential Communications Secretary Cesar B. Chavez said in the statement.
“Busy as they are with their mission, we should spare our fighting men of the corrosive politicking that has no place in their ranks,” he added.
Mr. Teodoro was appointed Defense chief in June 2023 — after the ban on the appointments of losing candidates ended — amid growing sea tensions with China.
He has called out China on several occasions amid encounters between their coast guard vessels near Second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal in the South China Sea.
Weeks after the Philippines signed a reciprocal access agreement with Japan, Mr. Teodoro said the country would pursue similar pacts with Canada, France, New Zealand and other “like-minded” nations.
He also served as Defense secretary under the government of ex-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Mr. Teodoro is a second cousin of the late President Benigno “Noynoy” S.C. Aquino III. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza